“Well, let me run back to the house for an umbrella,” Derek said. “I don’t want you to catch cold.”
“Hurry back,” Liza said.
She settled down on a log and watched him run back to the house. The rain increased in intensity, and she was grateful for the thick evergreen above her. Breathing in the damp, pine-scented air, she bent forward to pick one of the tiny white flowers. Something crackled behind her.
She turned abruptly, startled. There in the thick undergrowth stood a young woman, a patch of blood matting the blond tendrils at her forehead. The woman’s face was corpselike, her smile blue and thin. Liza found herself standing up, staring at her. She knew this was the woman Derek had spoken of, and yet she was too stunned to scream for help. That moment of hesitation was the last mistake she would ever make.
The woman jerked her to the ground, pulling Liza’s face close to her own. Frantically Liza tried to turn away from the horrible, putrefactive flesh. But this woman was too strong. She had a gleam in her eyes that burned into her victim’s, draining the fight in her. Something twisted Liza’s hand, and a cold line of metals slipped over her wrist as the bracelet she was wearing broke off and fell to the ground. Her sanity slowly drained by the piercing, evil eyes above her, Liza stopped thinking she was going to die and saw only blackness.
Her spirit had given up her body to the malevolence that longed to possess it.
A few minutes later, the body that was once Liza Crewe’s heard the sound of Derek’s whistling. He appeared in the clearing with an umbrella, a smile on his face. She smiled back at him, giving no clue to the evil that had just taken place here.
“Ready?” Derek said.
“Quite ready, Derek,” ‘Liza’ said.
She smiled slyly at him and hooked her hand around his elbow. She liked the hardness of his biceps. They didn’t speak until they reached the bay, where they kicked off their shoes and walked barefoot in the sand. The light rain had stopped, the sky was growing pink, and the salty wind was cool. Derek took Liza’s hand and squeezed it hard.
“Melanie’s going to be all right, isn’t she?” Liza asked.
“That’s a funny thing to bring up now,” Derek answered. “Well, yes. She’s going to be fine.”
Liza nodded. “That’s too bad.”
“You sound as if you wanted her to be hurt,” Derek said.
They caught each other’s eyes, and Derek noticed there was no light in Liza’s eyes. Her voice sounded dull when she said, “I meant it was too bad about the accident.”
“I know,” Derek said, toeing the water that rippled along the beach. “I was only kidding.”
He had brought a blanket with him, and when they found a huge pile of rocks, they sat down together and wrapped themselves in it. Derek kissed Liza gently.
“You’re trembling,” he said. “Do you want more of the blanket?”
“I only want you, Derek Miller,” Liza said.
She began to pull him down, pressing her lips to his as they sank into the pit of sand in the center of the rocks. It was their own private shelter, where no one else could see them. As Derek kissed Liza, his desires grew. So did hers, and she was suddenly sitting up and unbuttoning her blouse.
He watched her, tucking his hands behind his head, until she was kneeling over him wearing nothing but a necklace. This Derek fingered gently and then let his hand travel down the length of her body. She undressed him, and he stared into her eyes, his head filling with the mixed scents of her perfume and the wet, briny air.
“Funny,” he said.
“What?”
“In the twilight,” he said, “your eyes look blue.”
“Yes, Derek,” she said, leaning toward him.
She felt so warm to his touch. He covered her with kisses, not missing an inch of her dark, soft skin. Liza pressed herself hard against him. Derek was in ecstasy, never remembering a time when their lovemaking had been this intensely pleasurable.
When it was over, he opened his eyes and looked again into hers. Their blue had become lighter, but Derek was too filled with passion to really notice. Liza smiled up at him, digging her nails into the taut muscles of his arms.
“I knew I could have you, Derek Miller,” she said. Her smile revealed pointed teeth.
Liza had always had perfect teeth.
“What?”
Stunned, Derek rolled off of her. He gazed down at the nude woman lying on the sand, studying her face. It was Liza’s face, and yet the eyes and smile . . .
“Liza, what’s wrong with you?” he whispered.
She threw back her head and let out an ear-shattering screech. All at once, Derek felt himself being flipped over, his back crashing down against the flat rocks. Before he could right himself, the woman knelt over him, pinning his arms to the ground with superhuman strength. Her face twisted and stretched and became the hitchhiker’s. She grinned at him, knowing he was now in her power and that she could do anything to him that she desired. But there was still a flicker of defiance in Derek’s eyes, and he dared to lean his head back and spit at her.
“AAAAAUUUUGGGH!”
The cry was deep and guttural, not a woman’s cry at all. Angered, Janice-Liza willed her face to change once more. What Derek witnessed now tore away the last shreds of his resistance. For looming above him were the horrid remains of his wife Elaine’s face, just as she had looked after her terrible accident. Derek screamed, reliving that long-ago afternoon. Elaine’s car had gone up in flames, her body melting in an inferno. Her face, once beautiful, had become so twisted and ugly that Derek had passed out after identifying her at the morgue.
And now she was back again. . . .
“NNNOOOO!”
He tried desperately to turn away from the sickening vision. He screamed and kicked and pleaded, and yet the hideous face still hovered over him.
“Please, oh, dear God,” Derek cried. ‘I’ll do anything! Just get her away. Please!”
The face drained away and became the hitchhiker’s, smiling at him. He had said exactly what she wanted to hear.
“You’ll remember that face from now on, won’t you?” she said.
Derek nodded.
“And you don’t ever want to see it again, do you?”
Derek shook his head.
“Then remember this,” she hissed, “if you don’t want to suffer again, you’ll do everything I say.” Her voice took on a sing-song sweetness. “Won’t you?”
“Yes,” Derek whispered.
“Good,” the woman said. “Go back to the house now. You’ll go straight to bed, and when you wake in the morning, you’ll remember nothing but a pleasant evening with Liza.”
“Y-yes,” Derek choked.
He did not move when she climbed up the rocks and left him, carrying Liza’s clothes in her hands. She padded, naked, across the beach, her feet leaving no marks in the sand. A few moments later, she was behind the wheel of Liza’s car. This she started without a key and drove down the hill. When she reached the strip that followed the edge of the beach, she didn’t turn onto Houston, but instead found a sand-covered boardwalk, just wide enough to support the vehicle.
She drove on it, without lights, straight for the bay. The car splashed into the water, sending out a series of soft ripples. At first it floated, rocking gently. And then it was drawn down into the murky depths, moving slowly and lazily. When it hit the bottom, Liza’s body slumped forward against the steering wheel. The soft sand offered little resistance, and within moments the car had wedged itself in permanently.
On the beach Derek finally stood up and dressed himself. Then he hurried to the house, where, obeying a command, he went straight to bed.
18
“Are you okay?” Gary asked Melanie as they sat in the back of a yellow cab on the way home from the hospital.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Melanie asked, smiling at him. Then she nolded. “I get it. You think I’m nervous to be in a car again.”
“It would be under
standable.”
But Melanie looked calm today. After her outburst about someone tampering with her car, Gary had been afraid for her. Fortunately, she hadn’t mentioned it again. Realizing she might have been delirious from the blow to her head, Gary was quick to pass that incident off as hysteria.
Melanie took his hand. “I’m fine. Trust me.”
They were home within an hour. Gary paid the driver, then hobbled on his crutches to the front door. He expected Derek to be waiting inside. Instead, it was Lad who gave them a warm welcome-home.
“Hey, puppy,” Gary said, rubbing the dog’s head. “Where’s Derek?”
Lad barked. Gary looked at Melanie. “He’s probably right behind us,” he said. “Must have gone out for something. He wouldn’t let the kids come home to an empty house.”
“I should think not,” Melanie said, feeling a little angry at Derek.
She and Gary walked down the hall to the stairs, then Melanie carried her overnight bag up to her room. By the time she finished unpacking it, she heard the sounds of her children downstairs. Happy to see them again, she hurried down.
“Mom!” Kyle cried, running to her when she reached the bottom landing.
Hugs and kisses were exchanged, and even Alicen managed an embrace for Melanie. She noticed a change in the child. Alicen seemed to be glowing today; her smile made her very pretty, as a matter of fact. Melanie wondered what had happened to cause the change.
“You don’t look bad at all, mom,” Gina said. “It’s just a little bandage, like Derek said.”
“Derek bought pizza for dinner two nights!” Nancy cried.
“Mom, are you gonna cook for us now?” Kyle wanted to know.
“Of course,” Melanie said. “By the way, where is Derek?”
“Maybe he had to go to the dentist again,” Alicen suggested.
Well, that’s another switch, Melanie thought. Alicen making excuses for her father?
“He should have been here when you kids came home,” Melanie said. “He didn’t know daddy and I were coming today.”
Alicen shrugged. “We can take care of ourselves.”
“I know that,” Melanie said. “But I still don’t like the idea of you being alone. Anything could happen here.”
Gina’s eyes darkened. “Mom, don’t talk like that,” she said softly.
Melanie smiled at her, realizing she might have frightened her. The dining room door opened now. As if in answer to Melanie’s question, Derek stepped into the hallway. There was a shadow of a beard on his face, and underneath his eyes were dark circles. He blinked twice at the group near the front door.
“I thought you were out,” Melanie said. “Aren’t you feeling well, Derek?”
“I’m fine,” Derek said without emotion.
“You look terrible.”
Derek yawned and forced a smile that came out like a grimace. “I guess I fell asleep at lunch. I was up late last night.”
Melanie looked at him for a few minutes, disturbed to see that he, too, had changed. It was as if he had switched personalities with his daughter. Where she was now cheerful, he was gloomy. And Melanie could tell by his eyes that he was hiding something.
But Nancy was pulling at her arm, and it was more important to enjoy the children than to have worries.
“Where’s my daddy?”
“Upstairs in his office,” Melanie said. “He had to make a phone call. Why don’t you go up and say hi?”
“Come with us, mom,” Kyle said, taking her hand.
Melanie had wanted to talk to Derek, but Kyle was insistent. So now Derek leaned against the doorjamb and watched them go up the stairs. He sighed. The slight heaving of his shoulders made his back ache terribly. He felt as if he’d been severely beaten over every inch of his body.
He had been sitting in the kitchen for hours, staring out the back door. Something had happened the night before, Derek knew. He couldn’t remember having said goodbye to Liza. He knew they had had a pleasant evening—that much was clear in his head. But when had it ended?
A month, a week ago, Derek would have racked his brains to find a logical explanation for his loss of memory. He was a therapist, after all. He was supposed to always be in perfect physical and mental health. But now his physical being felt like a rat dragged out of a river, and his mental self was frayed to bits.
And for some reason, he didn’t give a damn.
He stopped rubbing his arms long enough to go upstairs to the bathroom. He could hear Gary’s voice, and he had the vague idea that they should get back to the therapy sessions as soon as possible. Then he reached into the tub and turned on the shower.
The water was like ice, invigorating. Shivering under it, Derek felt the fatigue draining from his body. The pain in his bones lessened a bit, and by the time he dried himself off, he was feeling a little better. Not much—the tiredness was still there. But enough to hide his uneasy feelings from the VanBurens. He wrapped a big towel around himself and hurried down the hall to his bedroom to change. He caught sight of himself in the floor-length mirror. To his shock he saw that his back had a bruise on it from his shoulder blade to the bottom of his ribs.
“Where the hell did that come from?” he asked himself aloud. He couldn’t remember falling last night. And his eyes—they weren’t like his eyes at all. There were dark circles under them, like a man who hadn’t slept in weeks.
What the hell went on here last night?
There was one way to find out: call Liza. Derek wasn’t sure if she would be home from school yet, but he’d take a chance. He dialed her number on the downstairs phone and let it ring twenty times before hanging up.
“She must be in school yet,” he said sadly.
He tried to call her again after dinner, to no avail. The fact that she wasn’t home when he needed her angered him so much that he slammed the phone down with a curse.
“Derek, what’s the matter?”
He turned to see Melanie behind him. Her eyes widened, and he knew it was at the sight of his angry face. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply to calm himself, then said, “Sorry. I’ve been trying to get Liza all day, but she isn’t home.”
“Well, I’m sure she’ll call you when she is,” Melanie said, reassuring him. She moved past him and went up the stairs, looking at him over her shoulder. It was as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him.
She found Gary in his office upstairs. “Gary, did you notice something funny about Derek today?”
“He looks a little tired,” Gary said.
“It’s more than that,” Melanie said. “Derek usually has energy to spare.”
“What are you doing?” Gary asked. “Giving yourself something else to worry about? He’s just fatigued after taking care of four kids for two days. He isn’t used to that kind of work.”
“It looks like more than fatigue, Gary,” Melanie said. “The man looks ready to drop.”
“Maybe he’s coming down with something,” Gary suggested. “We’ve had some damp weather here lately. Even therapists catch cold, you know.”
Melanie considered this. “You know, you’re probably right,” she said. “I’ll find some cold capsules and give them to him to take tonight.”
That night Derek took the pills, thanked Melanie, then dropped them into his wastebasket as soon as she left his bedroom. She had said they would make him fall asleep, and though he wanted that, a firm voice in his head told him he must stay awake. He sat up reading until midnight, then finally turned off his light and settled back against his pillows.
Suddenly, in the total darkness, he felt himself trembling. His knees turned to jelly, his stomach flipped, his heart pounded. In seconds his pillow was wet with perspiration. All the doubts he’d had earlier drained away, and in their place came a feeling of raw terror. He remembered everything of the previous night now. Liza’s face loomed over him, then the hitchhiker’s, and then, oh, my God, Elaine’s. Derek started to scream, but lips pressed hard against his to stifle it.
A tongue pressed between his lips and sought his. Derek gave in weakly and wrapped his arms around the ghostly body above him. It felt strangely warm, not what he had expected. When she pulled away from him, he saw Liza’s face.
“I want you, Derek Miller.”
It was Janice’s voice.
“Yes,” Derek said.
He knew he would have to give in to her. He knew she would show him Elaine’s face again, if he protested. So tonight, he didn’t try to get away from her. He didn’t dare.
She stood up now, pulling him onto his feet. When they passed through the beam of moonlight, he saw to his surprise that she was completely nude. It was Liza’s body, beautiful and firm. Derek reached out to touch it and heard Janice’s laugh. His hand shot through her.
“Please,” he whispered. “I want you, Liza.”
“Janice,” he heard.
They left the room, Derek following Liza-Janice like a little boy. He could feel his heart beating with anticipation, and did not try to fight it. He wanted her! He wasn’t afraid! He craved her more than he had ever craved anyone or anything in his life. And so he let her lead him down to the kitchen, to where Lad slept soundly under the table. As if they weren’t there at all, the dog didn’t stir.
Derek sank down to the floor, pulling Liza-Janice with him.
“I want you now,” he breathed. “Now.”
Janice fell on top of him, kissing him passionately. Then she sat up and smiled down at him. This was perfect. He was completely under her spell. This was exactly what she wanted.
“Make me feel like a woman,” she ordered.
Derek tightened his arms around her, crushing her. This time, there was substance there, warm flesh like a living mortal’s. And under Janice’s spell, he saw her only as Liza. She was good, pure, beautiful. She was not a thing of evil.
* * *
If Derek had been listening, he would have heard the sound of Melanie’s door opening. She had wakened up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache and was shuffling down the hallway to the bathroom. The bright light made her head ache all the more, and she clutched at the sink as she opened the medicine cabinet. To her anger, she remembered that she had left her painkillers in the kitchen.
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